Axar Patel, the captain of Delhi Capitals (DC), was forced to leave the field with a hand injury during his team's home match against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Tuesday night. He was fit enough to bat, but was in pain throughout his innings of 43 off 23 balls in a chase of 205.
Axar was fielding at midwicket in the 18th over when he dived at full stretch to field a ball hit towards him by Rovman Powell off the bowling of legspinner Vipraj Nigam. He winced in pain, and quickly left the field while received medical treatment from Patrick Farhat, DC's lead physio.
Faf du Plessis, DC's vice-captain, took over for the final 2.2 overs of the innings as KKR posted 204 for 9 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium. Axar was the standout bowler for DC, conceding just 27 runs from his four overs and taking the wickets of Ajinkya Rahane (trapped lbw on the back foot) and Venkatesh Iyer (caught at cover looking to hit over the top).
At the innings break, Axar was seen receiving further attention from Farhat with his hand heavily taped. He appeared to grimace while attempting to swing the bat, playing a couple of shadow-drives. Axar has had an impressive season with the bat so far, hitting 189 runs at 27.00 with a strike rate of 156.19 before Tuesday's game. Despite the blow, he came on to bat at No.5 against KKR.
He was deemed fit enough to walk out in his usual role at No. 5, but regularly took his bottom hand off the bat while playing shots and was clearly in pain throughout his innings. Despite his injury, he combined with Faf du Plessis to add 76 off 42 for the fourth wicket in DC's run chase.
Axar came into the IPL with an injury after cutting the index finger on his left hand - the same hand that he damaged against KKR - during the Champions Trophy. He explained recently that he had been reluctant to bowl himself as a result, since the skin had not fully healed, but he has bowled his full quota in DC's last three matches.
Heading into Tuesday night's match, DC sat fourth in the table, with six wins out of nine in Axar's first season as their permanent captain. KKR, their opponents, were seventh.